The headline in the November issue of Pediatrics describes a pandemic of Vitamin D deficiency among American children. Actually, it is even worse than the headline says.
The American Academy of Pediatrics says that a blood level of 50 nmol/L of Vitamin D is severely deficient, whereas a level of 75 nmol/L is only mildly deficient.
The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey examined 5000 children from 2001 to 2006 and based on this data, estimated that 6 million American children were likely to??be severely Vitamin D deficient.?? That was the good news.
The bad news is that two-thirds of children, an estimated 24 million kids were estimated to be only moderately deficient.?? It was even higher in hispanic kids (80%), nearly all black kids (92%) and “only” 59% of white kids were deficient.
Vitamin D is now being shown to be increasingly important in a long list of health issues.?? Deficiency, beginning at such a young age, cannot be good.
Dr. Michael F. Holick, professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics and director of the Vitamin D, Skin and Bone Research Laboratory at the Boston University School of Medicine, said that “we estimate that vitamin D deficiency is the most common medical condition in the world.”
“Children should take vitamin D supplements and be less afraid of sensible sun exposure,” Holick said.
Holick would prefer to see the safe upper limit of vitamin D raised. “What I would recommend is that in the first year of life, it should be raised to 5,000 IU per day and for children over the age of 1 and all adults, 10,000 IU a day,” he said.
A good reference site for Vitamin D is www.1-VitaminD.com .
Andrew Jones, M.D.
Medical Director, Women’s Health Institute of Texas
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